ADB Helps VN Develop Rural Electrification

Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Van Giau and ADB Country Director for Vietnam Ayumi Konishi recently in Hanoi signed a US$151 million loan to help the country expand and improve power services in poor and remote communities.

 

ADB pledged to provide US$151 million as Special Drawing Rights (SDR) from the concessionary Asian Development Fund to the US$197.6-million project. Three subsidiary companies of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) contributed the rest US$46.6 million.

 

The project consists of two components and will finish in 2015, In the first component, 5-10 mini-hydropower plants will be developed in some northern and central provinces, so as to ensure power electricity for 25-50 poor remote communes, and contribute about 100 GWh to the national power grid.

 

The second component will support the Government’s ongoing special electrification program for poor and ethnic minority areas. Around 100,000 households locating in over 1,000 villages will benefit from the component.

 

According to ADB Country Director Ayumi Konishi, access to reliable and affordable electricity supplies plays an important role in promoting economic development in remote mountainous and poor communes, bettering local people’s living standards, and facilitating provision of social services including health care and education in a more efficient manner.

 

ADB is also providing a non-refundable technical assistance (TA) grant of US $2.5 million, allocated from its Climate Change Fund and the TA Special Fund, to finance the development of a renewable energy law and for capacity building.

 

It was reported that as of 2008, 91 percent of households in 97 percent of communes throughout Vietnam were electrified.